An afternoon of side-by-side ATV riding with some fantastic naturalists and guides.
My wife and I went thinking this would be a dull "Follow-the-leader" drive over some tame terrain at slow speeds. , We were driven to the base camp by our excursion bus. We were met by our guide, Clay. Along with Jayne and Jeremy, the trio gave our group a run down of the equipment, and a brief and easy driving check out of the vehicles before hitting the trail. Helmets, gloves and goggles are available at the base.
Recommend taking waterproof pants to stay dry along the trail and hiking type shoes because you will be getting out at some remote locations. GoPro cameras are welcome, but must be operated by a second rider, or turned on before you start and attached to some part of the vehicle.
After our "Drivers Test" we started an approximately 2.5 hour tour of the foothills of the Alaskan Range that was anything but dull or slow. The guides took the group over some exciting rocky trails of various grades. All well within the capabilities of the vehicles even if more than a little daunting for the novice ATV'r.
The vehicles were all late model Yamaha two or four seat side-by-side ATV's. Ours was a two seat version. They were very easy to drive and their suspension made the rutted, rocky trails feel more like driving on a golf course than zipping through an Alaskan Mountain Range.
The guides stopped the group three different times to provide insights on the local areas of Denali and Healy. The areas were also selected for their excellent photographic qualities. Before moving on, each of the three guides made sure everyone was ready to continue, safety was clearly a high priority.
We had some opportunities to get quite fast (40+KPH) and ford some semi-fast moving water from recent snowmelt.
We returned to the base camp after approximately 2.5 hours feeling like we were given a backstage pass to areas otherwise inaccessible to the average person.